Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – the world, and its attitudes reflect the way it is led. Imagine a world that was led differently.
Matthew 20:25-28 NLT
Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you, it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. [28] For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Observation
God is always turning the ways of the world on their head. “But among you, it will be different.” Leadership, and authority, are not handled like the world does, with power, manipulation and control. Rather leadership will be modelled on servanthood and likened to slavery. Jesus presents himself as the model, one who came to serve and then pay the highest price of service. Imagine a world where authority and leadership were handled in this manner!
Here we hear Jesus paint a picture of the way of the world according to God’s design, we see something that is beautiful and so opposite to what we currently see and do. In every facet of life, from the way we do leadership to the way we are as lovers, Jesus calls us to a higher form. And always the beneficiary is others, but inherent is a blessing to those who walk the path. The challenge is not in the difficulty of comprehending what God is calling us to, the challenge is our brokenness and seduction to ways that continue to serve us poorly. The definition of a fool is one who wants to see change but does the same thing. How foolish we are as a people, when we want to see change, God declares the way of change, but we refuse to walk the change and we return to our own vomitous ways.
The challenge is that we will never walk in a way we have not experienced. God does not show us intellectually the how and then step back to see how we go. He does not stand on the sidelines hoping and cheering we can get there. The only way to live like God is to live intimately with him. It’s to be present with him experiencing his leadership ways, his love ways, personally. And then from encounter understand that this is me. This is what I am like for I am made in his image. This is my identity as a leader and lover. As I experience him, I see me, and then I reflect on my experience from the lens of identity and the presence of his empowerment to enable. Experiencing him leads to new understandings, a new identity and new empowerment. From here go and change the world. We will never be able to legislate or walk out the ways of God, no matter how desirable we see them to be, outside of a personal experience of him. His ways are not intellectually received and then self-determinedly expressed. It requires a deeper level of consciousness, heart and soul experience, then a walking away from self-enablement into his enabling presence. It’s from here that reflection happens.
Application
I will walk intimately with God and from my experience of the way he leads me I reflect leadership in whatever context I find myself. I will not hear the how and walk away impressed. I will hear an invitation and engage in a personal encounter. If you leave it to me I will flaunt and take advantage of my positions of power. I know this to be true. So I will seek to be present to his presence and then reflective of him as an identity of me.
Response
Thank you that you show and enable the world to be transformed. Not by manipulative leadership but by invitational personal giving of yourself. I love the picture of the world you paint that can be. I love that you say, “ but among you, it will be different.” Thank you for this amazing life you invite me into.
Meditation
Meditate – Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant.
Consider:
How do you express leadership?
Have you experienced personally the leadership of God?
JOURNEY DEEPER
